Mobile Internet is a technology which is predicted to far surpass its fixed Internet counterpart. Fundamentally, the Mobile Internet has become a large, if not the largest, global platform for advertising, collaboration, commerce, communications, entertainment, infotainment, productivity, social networking, etc., on the go. A number of problems and challenges exist in the mobile Internet dimension, including for example (without limitation) the following. There is a lack of sustained engagement; given the smart-device revolution, there is an app for “everything” and designing the next successful app is highly desirable. Furthermore, subscriber expectations for a desktop internet experience over the mobile Internet is dramatically impacting engagement. There are high costs and low revenue; both IT costs, and customer related acquisition and retention costs are increasing in a competitive app provider market place. Multi-media features are par for the course, yet the return on investment of rolling out premium features is very low. Traffic volumes corresponding to rich-media features are exponentially higher compared to text-based features of yesteryears but corresponding improvements in revenue are incremental.
Also, there is a lack of revenue generating services; from a mobile network operator perspective, what used to be a multi-services offering (with voice, messaging and premium messaging services, data applications like blackberry email, etc.,) has dwindled down rapidly to a data bandwidth service, with the only differentiation in the market being pricing. However, given the explosion in the number of over-the-top applications that are media rich (and bandwidth hogs), traffic growth has been significant requiring operators to make substantial investments. Simultaneously, given the near absence of differentiation, customer acquisition costs have sky rocketed (for instance, in developed nations and markets, subscriber acquisition costs are tied to device subsidies which have skyrocketed). Despite all these investments and subsidies, networks continue to be choked leading to poor customer engagement.
While access to the Internet through mobile broadband systems has expanded significantly, and application choices have grown exponentially, rich immersive and interactive solutions have not been achieved, leading to low engagement, high churn, and lost revenue. Complexities in app flow are at the heart of the problem, and can be categorized in to a sequence of chained problems (that are unique to mobility networks), comprising: distributed first mile problem, Mobile Middle Mile™ problem, and wireless last mile problem. In essence, the “cloud lacks mobility” leading to mobile networks treating applications as a sequence of packets and conversely applications treating mobile networks as black boxes.
The fundamental end-to-end complexities noted above can lead to the network and application not working in tandem. Application providers design and architect their delivery solutions by treating the network as a “black box” while network providers treat applications as a sequence of packets. A joint solution is missing from the market today.
In connection with the foregoing, systems and methods are needed for providing application mobility that can create new revenue streams through differentiated offerings, while simultaneously reducing costs, and improving customer engagement. Also, systems and methods are needed that can simplify the first mile, eliminate the Mobile Middle Mile™, and unclog the wireless last mile.